Kada Nikolina commands "seek", Black with his sense of smell, he discovers where an object of interest for the police investigation is hidden. Until then, he walks calmly along her left leg.
The two of them are ready to face any challenge and provide help where needed.
Nikolina Vlahović, is the only girl in the Team for Training Guides and Dog Training in the Special Purpose Police Sector. This twenty-five-year-old woman, with light blue eyes and blond hair, trains her service dog, a three-year-old Belgian Malinois, every day. She trains him, bathes him, takes care of his condition, health, and goes through specialized training with him to make him operational.
And he says - he has infinite confidence in him.
"A police dog, especially an attacker, is ready to sacrifice himself to save the life of the handler or other bystanders. That's why I'm the safest when I go to the field with Negro, because I know that he will surely protect me. What I, he and you cannot see, how can he feel, because even with all the machines that man has created, they have not yet been found that could replace a service dog, especially one that works with its sense of smell, that is, a tracker," explains Nikolina.
Working with service dogs in the police requires a range of knowledge, skills, team spirit, significant sacrifices and great love for these animals.
Nikolina points out that she enjoys doing her job, and she shows it while doing exercises with Negro.
Their working day, like that of everyone in the Team she is in, except that she is the only girl and the youngest, begins at seven o'clock, when the guides take their four-legged colleagues, get them ready and start conditioning exercises.
"Besides specialist training, an important segment for service dogs is also physical preparation, for which there are special programs that we use. Sometimes we go to the hill of Gorica, sometimes to the city center or outside, to one of the parks, but mostly we take them everywhere so that they get used to it and are better socialized. When we finish training with them, we return to Zagorič, where our unit is stationed, we give them some free time to rest, and then we do training. Training is always in a different location, because they need to change locations in order to function better, work better and be ready for any task that follows them. After training, the dogs rest, and then we brush, groom, and bathe them. Here we have a bathroom where we arrange them. Each handler is trained to do everything for his service dog, as well as the others, and we have all the resources we need for that, so all our dogs are neat and smelling good. About that and how we take care, because that is also very important, as important as it is that we and our uniform are neat", says Nikolina.
The young policewoman explains that the most common tasks of service dogs are detecting explosives, weapons, drugs, searching for perpetrators of criminal acts, finding and capturing them, finding victims and objects of criminal acts, guarding arrested persons and preventing their escape.
"In addition, they are used for the security of larger events, security of buildings and security of persons, finding the missing and straying, finding and rescuing victims of natural disasters, finding corpses, as patrol-reconnaissance dogs, when organizing chases, ambushes, blockades, during stage and patrol activities, during observation, identification, identity determination, raids, inspection of buildings and premises", says Nikolina.
Refined sense of smell
He points out that dogs in the police service can act preventively and repressively and that their use in the world is great:
"No machines have yet been found that would replace an official dog, especially one that works with a sense of smell, that is, a tracker. The use of service dogs to detect explosives is invaluable, especially in recent years due to the increasing activation of terrorist and criminal organizations. The devices currently used to detect explosives are fascinating and more advanced every day, but the service dog is second to none. He is there to be the first to smell a room, an airplane, a train, a car, squares, parks... he is the first to detect dangerous substances. Their keen sense of smell can register small explosive vapors measured by molecules and most importantly, from a safe enough distance for people".
He explains that dogs need daily conditioning and exercise, that is, training in terms of detection, depending on whether it is narcotics, explosives, weapons, people...
"We work every day according to a specific training plan," she says.
Official dogs of the Police Department are also trained to defeat armed attackers, defend police officers and themselves from them or stop them when they flee. Their trainings are more complex.
"The use of an official attack dog is priceless, especially if you consider that such a dog is ready to sacrifice itself in order to incapacitate the attacker, save the guide's life and other innocent lives," repeats Nikolina.
In Montenegro, only the police own official dogs, while in other countries, in addition to the police, customs and military services also have them. Nikolina explains that the presence of police dogs at airports, ports, railway and bus stations is mainly preventive, but that their use is very effective during routine controls.
"The keen sense of a trained service dog to detect explosives and narcotics can also detect well (hermetically) packed substances. "Looking at the possibilities of application of all service dogs, regardless of their specialty, it can be said that they are necessary and irreplaceable despite all the means created by man," she says.
While showing all the service dogs, Nikolina also explains which breeds are the most preferred all over the world - Belgian and German shepherds.
In the third box is Negro's father, and a few places from him is his mother. There is also his brother from the same litter - Don.
Nikolina and her bosses Predrag Barhanović and Special Team Commander, Marko Cetkovic, explain that they already have dogs from their kennel in that unit.
He arrived on the field, ahead of the Vijesti team Little wolf - German shepherd in the mood for training and play. At the command of his guide, he extends his paw to the author of these lines, and then gets a ball. With all my strength - I couldn't take it from him. He only dropped it when he was commanded to do so.
Vučko is with the police team most often at events and among children of preschool and school age, with whom he plays harmlessly.
"Vučko is also very operative, like all our dogs, and he shows this during various engagements. However, some of the nicest ones are when, for example, we act preventively on the square and allow children and adults to get to know our dogs, so that everyone knows that the Special Purpose Police Sector has its own dogs. "Vučko is then the main star", points out Nikolina.
A young policewoman talks about what brought her to that specialized police force. In the first place is the love for animals and for the vocation she chose in 2016, when she enrolled in the Police Academy.
"I graduated from the Academy in 2018 and started an internship in the Duty Service of the then Podgorica Security Center, lasting one year. I also enrolled in the Faculty of Civil Security, and completed my master's studies this year. At the same time, after completing my internship, from 2019 to 2020, I started working in the Special Police Unit. I went through a six-month training, with 14 other candidates. I met all the requirements and started working as a police officer in the platoon. After a year and a half in those jobs, I got an offer to move to this team. I am very happy with my decision to accept it - it fulfills me and I completely find myself. The work system is different than in the platoon, but my love for dogs has been since I was little, I have them at home, a four-year-old Maltese and a two-year-old German Shepherd. I inherited my love for dogs from my dad," she says.
Her beginnings in the Guide Training and Dog Training Team were hard, but she quickly overcame all challenges:
"When I came, I assigned a service dog, a malino - Negra. My beginnings were hard. Considering that I am very young, the youngest here, it was very difficult for me to find my way, but I amazed myself, and my colleagues say them too, with the speed with which I managed to get into the whole rhythm and process. Now I know that this is the job I want to do in the future and that this is exactly the team in which I want to progress"...
She explains that the recipe for success is when the handler and the dog have similar characters, but that was not the case with her and Negro.
"We must be aware that dogs, like people, all have different characters. Some are very calm, and some have a slightly stronger character and require their guide to be temperamental, that is, they work best with such a guide. I had the pleasure of getting a dog that does not agree at all with my temperament, because I am a very calm and withdrawn person, and he is non-stop in action, he constantly needs attention... Through daily training, we combined our two characters into one and it was great we function. The connection between the dog and the handler, as well as the connection between people who have dogs and their pets in general, is very important, and the most important thing is the contact between them. Everything else comes later. When you establish a relationship, when the dog looks at you and is attached to you, you can do whatever you want with it, all of that is achieved through training," explains Nikolina.
While the two pose as a team, the policewoman points out that in her job, the relationship of trust and obedience is built every day.
"In the end, you achieve that if you let the dog out for a walk where there are a lot of people, and where it is crowded, he will not go far from you. To get there, you have to train a lot with him and learn to read his movements and what his body is telling you. Based on body language and behavior, we all know what is going on with our dogs. When you learn to understand the meaning of the position of their ears, paws, how they stand - whether they are straight, relaxed, whether their hair is raised or folded, then you can be one hundred percent sure of their help. My teammates and I overcame it all. We know that when walking and in training, but also on the field. We had a lot of operational tasks, difficult and dangerous actions. "Negro is a true colleague, like all official dogs - they never leave the police, they are always with us and always have our backs, better than anyone else," says Nikolina.
She perfected her knowledge about dogs in Turkey and Spain, from where she brought great experience.
"I learned a lot, but also saw a lot, that's why I can say that we are not lagging behind any country in Europe when it comes to the training of service dogs. Our dogs are highly trained and very well obeyed. Each segment of the training is precisely made and everything we do with them has a goal and an answer for why something is done that way".
Less than half an hour after the Vijesti team left the training camp in Zagorič, the Guide Training and Dog Training Team and their four-legged "comrades" had to go to the field - for the umpteenth time in the past month, they were checking whether it was in one of the educational institution, explosives were planted, as it was written in the report sent by email.
The Negro has me, I have him
Dog hair everywhere, paw marks on the uniform, bathing the dog, cleaning the box, taking it for check-ups, vaccinations... but many other sacrifices, Nikolina says, are not difficult.
"This is a job where you have to get dirty every day, dog hair must remain on you, you have to feed them, clean them, bathe them... But none of that is a problem for me, because I enjoy my work every day. I love this job, I love dogs and I am impressed to be part of this Team. When you ask about sacrifices, as you have them because of work, as there are in every job if someone is a dedicated worker, of course, somewhere less, somewhere more, there are also here. Given that I am very attached to what I do, I don't find it difficult to make sacrifices, which are big. They are not difficult for me because there is my fellow Negro, whom I am taking care of. He has me, I have him, and we are a team that functions in such a way that, if something happens to him, it hurts me ten times more," says Nikolina.
She adds that everyone in the team, like her, regularly takes their dogs to the vet for check-ups, vaccinations, cleaning from external and internal parasites...
"We do everything according to a certain program and we really take care of their psychophysical condition. It happens that they get injured in action, because these are very explosive and fast dogs, and then we are always by their side," she says.
Obstacles are crossed without fail
At the training ground in Zagorič, Nikolina and her colleagues took service dogs out - they do obedience exercises, cross obstacles, retrieve...
When the handlers command them to sit, there is nothing else to move them or distract them until they hear the familiar voice again.
While the Vijesti team is talking to Nikolina, the Team Commander, Predrag Barhanović, gives Don the command to go.
The Belgian shepherd, who follows Barhanović's facial expressions and commands, overcomes the obstacles without fail - he passes the one in the lowered position, the "A" bridge, the hard tunnel, jumps over the ramp through the frame, passes the stairs, and then after one uttered "op" he flies over the last obstacle.
After a well-done exercise, he gets a reward - the guide gives him a ball to play with.
Barking can be heard from the boxes, where the other service dogs are waiting for their turn to exercise.
When they are retired, the dogs move to the handler
When service dogs retire, handlers don't leave them behind - they take them with them.
"The working life of a service dog is eight years on average, and it depends on their health and physical condition, so some can retire earlier, and some can work longer. After retirement, the dogs are mostly taken by us, the guides," explains Nikolina.
He also points out that it would be inhumane if, after the dog has done its job, it should be put to sleep or just thrown away.
"We take them to our home, because they have spent many years with us and it is normal that no one will leave their dog, just as they will never leave us," she said.
Bonus video:
